Print and other image-based advertisements often have more than one version, with each version corresponding to some minor modification of a reference (e.g., parent) advertisement. For example, a particular family of print advertisements can be based on a reference (e.g., parent) advertisement displaying a common background image and common information (e.g., for the product/service being advertised), but with each particular version also displaying version specific information (e.g., logos, prices, addresses, phone numbers, dates, etc., corresponding to a particular market, advertising campaign, etc.) overlaid on the background image. Video advertisements (e.g., commercials) can similarly have more than one version. Advertisers are often interested in not only detecting occurrences of their print/image/video advertisements, but also determining which version of the advertisement was detected. Many conventional advertisement version detection techniques are entirely manual and involve an analyst visually comparing a sample image representative of a detected advertisement to each possible version of the advertisement. Other conventional techniques utilize pixel-wise comparison techniques to highlight pixels in the sample image that differ from the reference advertisement, thereby allowing the analyst to focus his/her attention on only the highlighted regions to identify which version of the advertisement was detected. However, in practice, a common background used for a family of advertisements may be slightly altered (intentionally or unintentionally) during post-production of a particular version of the advertisement. Such alterations can cause existing pixel-wise comparison techniques to be prone to false highlighting or over highlighting of the sample images being analyzed.